Is the Cyber-Terror Threat Inflated?

A U.S. sailor monitors cyber intrusions on a Navy network / Navy photo by Rick Naystatt

So I’m reading the August-September issue of Reason magazine (a well-crafted periodical of libertarian bent) when I came across a fairly compelling piece on the threat, or lack thereof, posed by cyber-terrorism. Unfortunately, Reason’s latest issue isn’t on line, but I found the working paper on which it is based. It’s well worth a read by the skeptical mind.

Occasional Time Techland contributor Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins of George Mason University are the authors. “I wrote the piece because I kept seeing the rhetoric around cyber-security in Washington, D.C., getting crazier and crazier, and when I looked for the evidence that might support some of the doomsday scenarios being bandied about, I found that there was very little,” Brito says. “I also found that there were few folks pointing this out.”